


Mean the Most

by yikesola



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, regular jobs au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Dan figures goodbyes are inevitable, and he’s learned how to leave very effective ones for better or worse depending on how he feels about the person he’s saying goodbye to. That morning he’d given a good one to Phil.A au fic about friends with benefits and necessary conversions.





	Mean the Most

**Author's Note:**

> Written for PFF Shuffle Mode— song prompt: “Too Good at Goodbyes” by Sam Smith. Betaed by the ever-patient [templeofshame](http://templeofshame.tumblr.com/).

Dan has always been good at goodbyes. Phil found that out right away, back when they first started fooling around. Back when they’d been introduced at a housewarming party by a friend of a friend and told they’d get on well. 

“Dan’s got a lot to offer,” Tommy said, slapping his hands across both of their backs. 

“Do you now?” Phil said smiling, entranced by the dimpled cheeks before him, the curly hair, the broad shoulders, the legs as long as his own. Tommy moved on and left them alone. 

Dan said with a smirk, “I’m a pretty face and a tight ass. Not much else, but it’s enough.”

“Well, that’s selling yourself short,” Phil frowned. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

Dan shrugged. “Didn’t always.” Then he laughed and swigged back some of the drink in his hand, and Phil couldn’t really be sure how serious Dan was being, but he _did_ know that he wanted to learn everything he could about him. Phil wasn’t about to let those dimples out of his life. 

Two hours and forty minutes later, they’d had as much conversation as two people with a lot in common can have when competing with the volume of a lot of partygoers in a cramped living space. Phil suggested a walk, and as they waited in the hallway outside of Tommy’s flat for the lift to arrive, Dan leaned into Phil’s arm and rested his head on Phil’s shoulder in a way that hinted at more intimacy than they’d really earned at that point. 

Phil wasn’t complaining. 

He turned towards Dan and bent forward to kiss him, and learned what his chapped lips taste like. 

The next morning, when Dan was hunting down the clothes they’d tossed haphazardly the night before, Phil steadied his nerves and asked for Dan’s number. Dan gave it, which felt like a good sign. But then after tugging his jumper over his head, he ran his hands through his curls and sighed and said, “Look, I had a nice time. And I’d like to hang out again. But I’m not like,” he cleared his throat, “I’m not looking for anything serious.” 

Phil nodded and tucked his shaky hands into his crossed arms, hoping that Dan wouldn’t see them. “Oh good,” he said, “me neither.” 

“Yeah?” Dan asked. 

“Yeah, for sure. I’m a pretty casual guy.” The taste of the lie mixed with the taste of his morning breath and the taste of last night’s alcohol. It was horrible, but he managed a smile anyway. “Would still like to hang out, though. I gotta kick your ass at _Mario Kart_.” 

“Not likely, but you’re welcome to try,” Dan smiled. That smile hit Phil right between the ribs. “I’ll text you.” 

Dan even hugged him on his way out of Phil’s flat. It was more than Phil felt he could ask for, but it was a good goodbye. All their other goodbyes would be good as well, even if they ate Phil up later when he was alone. It’s just one of Dan’s talents. 

*

The plaster of Dan’s persona had begun to crack, and he only just got out of Phil’s flat in time. 

As he sat in his uber on the way home the stupid, put-on lines he had peddled looped in his head. _A pretty face and a tight ass_ , what is he? A Bond Girl? 

He meant it when he said he’d text Phil, and that he’d like to see him again. But he also meant it when he said he wasn’t looking for anything serious. 

The last few times he had been, hadn’t ended well. His depression was too heavy for any potential partners to handle. And even the days where Dan had his shit together, well, he annoyed people too easily. Grated them. Got under their skin. 

Which is why goodbyes are inevitable, and he’s learned how to leave very effective ones for better or worse depending on how he feels about the person he’s saying goodbye to. 

That morning he’d given a good one to Phil. He liked Phil’s energy, his smile, the way he bit at his lips when they’d kissed. He liked Phil’s passionate defense of bad horror films, his bird nose, the tenderness that hit his eyes at a lot of the things Dan said. 

He liked Phil enough to keep him at arm’s length. To hang out, to fool around, and to keep a barbed-wire fence around his heart. Physical intimacy is one thing. Emotional intimacy another. Phil seemed like the kind of friend he needed, and the kind of fuck he wasn’t willing to say no to. Which meant anything else was off the table. 

He can even pretend to be noble about it, he decides in the shower as he washes the scent of the night off of him. Like he’s doing this for Phil’s own good. One night in and he can already tell that Phil’s the wonderful sort of person who he can pretend that for. 

Because Phil deserves better than him. Because Phil deserves the world. 

And maybe he’s idealizing a person he barely knows. But pointing it out to himself doesn’t mean he’s not going to do it anyway. 

*

They text, they talk, they hang out quite a bit. It often ends in sex. They take turns making the first move each time, instinctively, almost so that neither of them is fully to blame for their unwillingness to stay platonic. 

And it’s good; they’re both happy with the arrangement. 

Until it’s not enough. 

Phil knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Mr. I’m-A-Pretty-Casual-Guy, he’d been lying through his teeth. He’d been making the same mistakes he made back in his first few weeks at uni, boasting about being some club-going sex maniac. 

It’s like he hasn’t learned a thing. Because even all these months later, as much as he feels he knows Dan, really _knows_ him— when they’re chatting and laughing and sharing anecdotes, when they’re twisting their limbs together and working towards release and choking on each other’s name— he can’t break through the trench of distance dug between them. 

He isn’t being honest. How can they ever break through that if he isn’t being honest? 

Then Dan disappeared for nearly a week. He’d done so for a day or two at a time before, not answering Phil’s texts. And Phil had to bear it and figure that Dan doesn’t owe him constant availability. But nearly a week felt different. 

He’s worried. He’s curious. And he misses Dan. If he strips everything away, that’s what it comes down to. 

He even shelves his anxiety around phone calls to ring him, though that too goes unanswered. On the ninth day of radio silence, Phil makes a choice that he admits might be overstepping boundaries: he goes to Dan’s flat. 

He’s not sure what he’s expecting. He’s not sure if Dan will even be there. They don’t talk about if they’re seeing other people, and for all Phil knows Dan could be on a Caribbean holiday with a person who gives him whatever it is Phil can’t. Or he could be on the other side of the door he’s stood before. So he knocks. 

And he knocks again when there isn’t an answer. 

And he calls Dan’s phone one more time because the adrenaline in his veins is telling him he can’t leave empty handed. 

Dan answers on the third ring. He sounds hoarse and hollow. “Phil?” 

“Hey,” Phil says, feigning casual just as he has for months. 

“Was that… were you knocking?” 

“Is that okay?” Phil’s adrenaline has turned to panic. “I’m… it’s been a while. Wanted to see what you were up to.”

There’s a long pause. “Door should be unlocked, I think. Come in.” 

Dan is right and the door is unlocked. Phil and his fear of home invasion absolutely hates that. 

When he steps into Dan’s studio flat he takes in the state of it slowly— the lights are out, he can only see the room by the light of the cars driving past Dan’s open window. His two houseplants on the kitchen counter are droopy; they’re brown and crispy. Everything else is generally cluttered. Close. Compact. Despite the open window the room feels too stifling. And Dan, Phil has to assume, is the lump laying under a pile of blankets on the bed. 

“I’m… not up to much,” Dan says when Phil kneels down beside him. The purple bags under his eyes in the dim light is an image Phil doesn’t think he’ll ever forget seeing. 

Dan, over the many times they’d hung out, had mentioned struggling with depression. Mentioned it casually, mentioned it so that Phil wouldn’t be surprised by it. 

And yet having Dan look right through him still floors Phil. He aches for Dan, the nurturer in his heart is reaching out to him. He wants to make sure he’s warm and fed and safe, and he doesn’t even have time to remember that Dan hasn’t asked him to take on that responsibility before he pulls out his phone to order some takeaway. 

They eat burgers with the lights on and Dan’s laptop playing _Back to the Future_. Dan doesn’t talk much, but there’s a little colour in his cheeks by the time the night is through. 

*

Phil goes back to Dan’s apartment after work the next day. And the day after. And the day after that. He convinces Dan to shower, and they wash Dan’s dishes together, and he waters Dan’s houseplants while joking that Dan better appreciate it because he barely remembers to water his own. 

By the time Dan is feeling more like himself again, he’s embarrassed that Phil had to swoop in. He’s embarrassed that Phil saw him so vulnerable. He’s embarrassed that he took too much from the _friend_ part of their arrangement without offering any of the _benefit_ portion. 

Which is stupid and irrational, he knows. 

But that’s kinda how mental illness works. 

Once things have settled back into their usual pattern, they’re hanging out at Phil’s place and playing _Overcooked_ which stresses and energizes them to the point of a weird euphoria. It’s probably along the same rush that people who cliff dive get, Dan figures. 

But this is much safer; the worst that could happen is that you play with someone who thinks you’re serious when you yell at them about getting the potatoes in the pot. But Phil never misunderstands him. Even if he giggles and freezes while they play and says Dan needs to calm down, with this at least they are on the same page. 

They order pizza and eat all but one slice. The night has slipped into being too late for them to move into the bedroom because Dan has to work early in the morning. As he’s leaving, he pauses in the door and turns back to Phil. 

“I just, I want to say that I’m sorry you had to see me like that, the other day. I was at the tailend of my spiral, but still,” he shrugs. “You don’t need to see that.” 

Phil leans against the doorjamb. “You don’t have to be sorry.” 

“Well, I am. I feel like I owe you or something. People… friends and partners and whatever, they were never…” he’s trying to steady his voice but it still shakes a bit. “Once they saw me like that, things weren’t ever really the same again. I get that it can be uncomfortable, to see a person unable to person.” 

“Dan,” Phil says with a crease in his brow that Dan has the strangest urge to reach out and smooth. An urge he can’t remember feeling for anyone but Phil. “Maybe other people weren’t willing to make an effort. That doesn’t mean you aren’t worth making an effort for.” 

He can feel the rosy patch by his jaw bloom into a blush. “I just hate seeming vulnerable. I don’t want you to think you need to save me or anything.” 

“I think you _are_ vulnerable,” Phil says. “And I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” he shrugs, “and I think there’s a difference between saving someone and just... caring about them.” 

Dan’s not sure if he’s annoyed or not. “What else do you think?”

“I think that you’re a romantic who got hurt one too many times.” 

Dan has to look away from Phil’s face; he’s pretty sure those unblinking blue eyes are peeling back every layer of carefully cultivated persona, and doesn’t think he has the will to mind. “I still feel like I owe you.”

“You don’t.”

“I know. It’s stupid. Can I just… is there anything you,” he clears his throat, “anything you want? As like, a thank you?” 

Phil thinks for a moment; Dan can see the gears turning in his brain. After a shaky sort of breath he says, “Kiss me goodnight.” 

They only kiss when they’re going to fool around. They only kiss as a prelude to more. It’s one of the few remaining barriers left between them. And now Phil’s asking Dan for a simple fucking goodnight kiss. 

“I won’t try anything fresh,” Phil says with a half-hearted smirk. His voice is sincere but there’s a glimmer in his eye Dan doesn’t trust. “Just a goodnight kiss. Could be a brief peck, if you want. Hell, could be on my cheek for all I care. Just throw me some scraps here, Danny.”

So Dan throws him some scraps; he leans forward and he kisses him and Phil’s hand is cupping his face and Phil’s thumb is stroking his cheek. It isn’t a heated, hungry, sexy kiss at all. It’s soft, and it’s comfort, and it’s longing. It’s a floodgate of things Dan hasn’t allowed himself to feel in ages. Maybe ever. And it’s over before he can decide if he wants more or not. 

“Goodnight, Dan,” Phil smiles when he pulls back. He steps into his flat. He closes the door. 

Dan thinks he’s never been bested at goodbyes before. But fuck has this one floored him. 

*

There’s nothing standing in the way of them being together other than an honest conversation, Phil realises. Sure, there are societal and circumstantial things that will always arise. But Phil’s lying in bed the morning after kissing Dan goodnight, and he knows the difference between friends with benefits and a proper goddamn relationship is just having the freaking conversation. 

A conversation that Phil is terrified to have. 

More so than usual— he hates making phone calls and he hates confrontation and he’s good at putting off hard conversations. And this is one that can go a couple of ways. 

Dan can say that he doesn’t want Phil. That’s always a terrible possibility. Dan can insist things stay the way they are, and Phil’s so gone on him that he thinks he might just agree to that for a few more months of Dan in his life.

Or… too-good-to-be-true or, Dan could want him just as badly despite what he said back in the very beginning. 

He calls Dan before he has the chance to talk himself out of it. He just needs to rip the plaster off if he isn’t going to lose his mind. He remembers too late that Dan’s at work. 

He leaves a rambling message that he immediately regrets, one filled with things like “I think we should talk” and “I’m not sure we want the same thing, but I need to know” and “call me back when you get a chance, please” with a little too much desperation in the _please_. 

He’s barely coming down from the wave of his anxiety by the time Dan calls him back. And he spits out that he’s been too distracted lately by lines and boundaries, by where the friends end and the benefits begin, and what he’s supposed to do with the pang in his heart that comes when he wants to tell Dan he loves his smile. 

“Maybe we’re making this harder than it has to be,” Dan says after a silence so long Phil thinks he might honestly pass out. “Maybe we should like… just be honest about what we want.” 

“What do you want, Dan?”

“You.” 

*

Dan doesn’t have to be so good at goodbyes anymore. He’s good at other things anyways, he learns. He finds he’s good at listening, and at rubbing Phil’s temples just right when he has a headache. He continues to be good at that thing he does with his wrist that Phil just can’t get enough of. 

And he slowly gets good at being vulnerable with Phil, even on the days when it seems impossible. 

Instead of goodbye, he’s saying “Hello, you,” to Phil when he walks into his flat one golden afternoon. The amber light is filling Dan’s small space through the open windows and though nothing in it has actually changed in the time since Phil nervously knocked on the door unsure if Dan was inside, the atmosphere of the entire flat is transformed. 

The two houseplants are thriving, one with new shoots and the other grown thick and strong. 

There’s the sizzle of fajitas on the stovetop, distracting Dan from greeting Phil who had let himself in with his own key. 

The pile of blankets Dan had been buried in all those months ago is folded neatly in a wicker basket near the sofa. They get pulled out sometimes, sure, when Dan has a grey day. But Phil sits there beside him when he does. Then they fold them up neatly again together. 

The place sometimes feels a little cramped when they both burrow into it. Even Phil’s place, though it isn’t as small as Dan’s studio flat, doesn’t quite feel like it has enough room to grow. And they tease each other that they’ll never be able to watch all the shows they want because they lose so much time travelling to one another’s flats. 

So Dan might soon have the opportunity to be good at a goodbye again, a goodbye to this flat as he and Phil move in somewhere a little more designed for the togetherness that they’ve agreed suits them. 

“Loser takes the bin out?” Dan challenges when they’re one-to-one on _Mario Kart_ that night. He’s confident enough he’ll win. Phil’s win earlier was pure luck. 

“But it’s _your_ bin,” Phil pouts. 

“Won’t always be. It’s good practice,” Dan says. “What’s the matter, Philly? Scared you’ll lose?” 

Phil takes the bait, loses the third round pitifully, and challenges Dan to an all-or-nothing round of Rock Paper Scissors. He loses that as well, and takes out the bin with a bit of a sulk. But Dan makes it up to him later, with crinkled smiles and a pun about seals and that thing he does with his wrist. He’s good at plenty of things, turns out. Not just goodbyes.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/183843532619/mean-the-most) !


End file.
